{"id":275831,"date":"2026-06-23T22:59:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T22:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/275831\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T22:59:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T22:59:07","slug":"high-school-senior-gets-over-5-years-in-prison-for-setting-homeless-man-on-fire-on-nyc-subway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/275831\/","title":{"rendered":"High School Senior Gets Over 5 Years in Prison for Setting Homeless Man on Fire on NYC Subway"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A high school senior who admitted to setting a fire that severely burned a homeless man on the subway was sentenced Tuesday in Manhattan federal court to 5 1\/2 years in prison.<\/p>\n<p>Judge Lewis J. Liman gave Hiram Carrero, 19, a sentence that was longer than the mandatory minimum required for arson, after the teen plead guilty in March to the charge.<\/p>\n<p>The early morning fire on Dec. 1, 2025, came among a series of attacks with <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/chicago-woman-burned-train-4e43a526e3b93c217beca1d150c5ec1d\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">people set on fire<\/a> on public transit across the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>In a presentence submission, prosecutors requested he serve up to eight years in prison, saying Carrero&#8217;s \u201cheinous actions\u201d left the man, who was sleeping at the time, critically injured and with permanent extensive scarring and disfigurement.<\/p>\n<p>During his guilty plea, Carrero admitted that he intentionally ignited a piece of paper that harmed the man.<\/p>\n<p>In court papers, prosecutors said Carrero tried to kill \u201ca sleeping, homeless man by burning him alive and leaving him trapped on a moving subway car.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They said the man&#8217;s life was saved only because emergency personnel reached him quickly after a \u201cmercifully short trip\u201d from Penn Station at 34th Street to Times Square.<\/p>\n<p>The crime, prosecutors said, was \u201cseparated from murder by mere chance,\u201d and they were critical of his explanation that he had been drinking and smoked marijuana that day.<\/p>\n<p>In seeking leniency for her client, defense lawyer Jennifer Brown noted in court papers that he&#8217;d had a troubled past, starting when he was born prematurely with drugs in his system and was abandoned by his biological parents at the hospital after his birth.<\/p>\n<p>Intellectually challenged, \u201cthings fell apart for him\u201d when the pandemic struck in 2020, eliminating his ability to attend school, the lawyer wrote.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWords are inadequate to express the profound shame and remorse that Hiram feels,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 The\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ap.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Associated Press<\/a>. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.<\/p>\n<p>Photos You Should See \u2013 June 2026<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1782255547_47_june-23-pyss-v04.jpg\" alt=\"TOPSHOT - A swimmer dives into the Canal Saint-Martin, from an unapproved spot for swimming as France experiences a heatwave in Paris on June 20, 2026. Due to the ongoing heatwave sweeping across France - the Bassin des Recollets - a portion of the Canal Saint-Martin in the French capital has been opened for swimming from June 17. France issued a red heatwave alert across more than a third of the country for June 21, as a ferocious heatwave dug in and the government banned the consumption of alcohol in certain areas during the annual Fete de la Musique festivities. (Photo by ARNAUD FINISTRE \/ AFP via Getty Images)\" class=\"Image__PictureImage-sc-412cjc-1 bBgODV Image-sc-412cjc-2 SlideshowEmbed__Picture-fkpjfn-0 kQDDcT bUlaJL\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A high school senior who admitted to setting a fire that severely burned a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[118,59691,59690,419,2000,415,9,24,10,63,134,136,135,421],"class_list":["post-275831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-associated-press","tag-collections-top-news","tag-collections-us","tag-courts","tag-homelessness","tag-indictments","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-news","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news","tag-u-s-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}